Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Twitter launches timelines feature [ H0us3 ]

Press Association –

Social networking site Twitter is allowing users to create their own custom timelines, saying it will reshape the way people share news.

Twitter project manager Brian Ellis said the new feature, which draws on Twitter’s strength of sharing real-time events, makes it easier to control how tweets are organised and delivered on the multimedia platform.

“Custom timelines are an entirely new type of timeline – one that you create,” Mr Ellis posted to a Twitter blog.

“You name it, and choose the Tweets you want to add to it, either by hand or programmatically.

“This means that when the conversation around an event or topic takes off on Twitter, you have the opportunity to create a timeline that surfaces what you believe to be the most noteworthy, relevant Tweets.”

Mr Ellis said the custom timelines would have their own webpages, meaning they are easier to share with others.

They can also be embedded on individual websites, he said.

The new platform has already been used to complement the live component of US reality talent show, The Voice. It is also being used by political groups and news organisations for Q&A sessions between journalists and readers on current affairs topics.

“Whether you want to collect the best Tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines let you give everyone a place to follow along,” he said.

Mr Ellis said Twitter has also introduced a new programming tool to help create custom timelines. Users can start composing the timelines in TweetDeck.

The new tool comes just days after Twitter floated on the New York stock market last Thursday. After an initial price of 26 dollars (£16.33) a share, they soared by 73%, before settling to around 42 dollars (£26.37) since then.